


Unauthorized Magic

by enkelimagnus



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Gen, Implied Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-30 21:12:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21146705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enkelimagnus/pseuds/enkelimagnus
Summary: Eliot Waugh, a smart and hedonistic man looking to get into Yale, stumbles onto a dead man and onto the lawn of Brakebills University.-----------A couple of scenes from the first episode, but this time, Eliot is the one getting into Brakebills.





	Unauthorized Magic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angelette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelette/gifts).

> I hope you enjoy this! It was quite fun to write!

Eliot Waugh had always been a bit of a peculiar kid in his family. Gay, obsessed with fantasy worlds, and with a touch of whimsy that did not work well with the Midwestern, rural backdrop he’d been born in.

New York was a whirlwind of emotions and he needed sometimes to get out of the party, especially the one that was happening next door, in the living room of the apartment he shared with Margo and her current boy-toy, James. 

Eliot knew that calling James a boy-toy wasn’t really nice, but he didn’t know what else to call him. Margo would break him with him soon enough, when she realized she didn’t have feelings for him. She never had any. Neither did he, if he was honest with himself. The only person he loved was Margo. 

For now, she was still drinking and enjoying herself. Not that much, because her signature scream-laugh that made Eliot smile as wide as the Joker wasn’t resounding over the music. 

Eliot was laying on his bed, the steady, comforting and familiar weight of the first Fillory and Further book "The World in the Walls" resting on his stomach.

There was a knock on the door as his eyes roamed over familiar lines. He wondered if he was currently reading, or if he had just memorized the story and the motion of reading so much that he was just pretending. Could someone even pretend to read, while also looking at the letters and moving their eyes and going over the story?

"Where’d he go?" Margo’s voice resounded in the room as she softly closed the french doors behind her. "The, uh--the guy in the rainbow shorts?"

There had been a guy like that at the party earlier. Rainbow shorts so short Eliot could almost see his balls. He’d been cute, too, with dark hair and a hat on. A bit flamboyant, but very much cute.

"Yeah, you just missed him.”

Margo sat down on the bed, draping herself over the checkered blue sheets. "And?" 

Eliot chuckled. "He… came and went. Very fast." 

Margo smirked and looked at him. “Good for you…” Her voice was hoarse from smoking. "So what? You’re having a little… post-coitus book reading?" she rolled her eyes, and grabbed the book out of his hands. 

He didn’t want to let it go. He didn’t really know if the 'it' referred to the book, or to his childhood anyway. Whatever childhood he had left. He was 24 and he had a BA. 

Margo kept going. "There’s like 73 of his kind of waiting for you to finish reading the book you’ve already read 800 times and come out of your room. He’s probably already talking about your sexual prowess." She huffed, crawling over the bed and sitting down next to him.

"Hmm… I’ll go, gimme a minute," Eliot promised. "It’s just it’s a first edition, and I am looking at it one last time before I sell it on eBay."

Margo fell silent. She knew what it meant to him. She’d been the one to get him to read these books in the first place. They’d sat down together and gone over the worlds and the people in them, over and over again. 

Again, he felt the melancholy of it all, the pain that came with selling these books, and saying goodbye to his younger self. Maybe said younger self wasn’t the happiest, but these books, these universes, had held him so tightly, held him up so steadily... It was too painful of a farewell.

\--------------

Eliot’s footsteps felt unsteady as he made his way down the street. They had just come out of the subway, and he was still so hungover. Margo seemed fresh and happy and perfectly sober, and he had no idea how she even succeeded in that. 

"Okay, we have got to pull you together. This is it, Eliot. It. You can’t cock this up." She pointed out, in her usual direct way. 

Eliot sipped his coffee. It tasted strange. Weed was still coating his senses. "I’m still high," he sighed. "Well… I don’t think I’ve been sober in the last ten years,” he chuckled and wrapped an arm around Margo. “It’s only the alumni interview." He tried to psych himself up. 

Margo grinned at him, turning to him. They were less than a block away, and he needed his dose of Margo pep talk.

"Only nerds worry about those," he added, looking over at the house, and the wooden door.

"And it’s just Yale," Margo giggled. “Not exactly… the top of the pile.” 

"And, honestly, they probably take anyone conscious for philosophy."

"For philosophy, "conscious" is a detriment." Margo reminded. The way her brain worked was wonderful. It was like a constant stream of wonderful information. 

"So I’m good."

"You’re great," she smiled at him. 

They crossed the rest of the distance towards the door. Margo rang the doorbell and turned to him with a pointed pout, her strange, raised-eyebrowed expression that said 'and now, your turn'. Eliot grinned.

"You know, you can go."

Margo rolled her eyes. "Hey. I am the angel protecting your future, Waugh. You’d be nothing without me. Now, tighten your shit."

He chuckled, and tightened his tie. It somewhat strangled him. "Yes, ma’am."

There was no answer from the inside of the house, and Eliot would have waited outside for much longer if Margo hadn’t pushed the door open. It was unlocked.

"Hello?" She called out as she stepped in, Eliot fast on her feet. It was empty, and cold, and it was also a very quiet place. There should have been someone expecting him. 

Eliot closed the door behind him and called out as well. "It’s Eliot Waugh for the grad-school interview?" 

There was still no reply. He looked over on the right, and there was a living room. It seemed empty still. His eyes scanned over the furniture and stopped on a very specific one. 

It was a clock. Not any clock, definitely. A grandfather clock, with the exact dimension and features of the grandfather clock featured on some of the Fillory books, and inside of them. Around the clock, and the closer to it he was, Eliot could feel the pull of the magical energy of it. 

He didn’t actually know if it was magical energy, but he sure as hell had never felt something like this before, even when he was high. 

"I don’t believe it," he whispered. The clock read 10 past 1. The top of it was adorned with two heads of some horned beasts. Eliot recognized them as Ember and Umber, the Gods creators of Fillory.

“Balls, what the fuck is this fucking shit?” Margo started shouting curses and swears, and started shouting out curses and swears like nothing Eliot had ever heard before. He turned around and saw it. 

"Oh, shit!" He exclaimed. 

The eyes of the dead man were glassy and open wide. They stared at the ceiling. This was the man he was supposed to meet. How were they going to explain that they hadn’t killed him? 

\-------------

  
  


Eliot and Margo walked out of the house once the medics had taken the body away. There had been statements and he was starting to stress out about having to deal with the investigation into the man’s death. 

The one thing that was keeping his brain from screaming and running in circles was the package he was holding. It felt like a book or a stack of papers, held in a craft envelop with 'Eliot Waugh' written on it. The strange medic woman, Eliza, had given it to him. 

He opened it and slid the stacks of papers out. It was thick, and it looked like a manuscript. He turned the papers around to look at what was written in beautiful cursive on the title page. 

His heart stopped beating. "Whoa, look at that. "Fillory and Further, Book Six: The Magicians." Look at the date--1952." His mind was reeling. 

Inside of him, everything was screaming at him that he was holding in his hands something that was worth millions. 

"All right, please," Margo huffed. She looked away from him.

Eliot kept rambling. "There are five Fillory books, Margo--five."

"Yeah, I-I know, Eliot. Everyone knows."

Eliot opened the first page. It was written in a tight typewriter script. It was beautiful. "There’s always been rumors of a sixth book that disappeared."

Margo rolled her eyes at him. "Yeah, and those are just some stupid rumors off a super-fan message board. Come on, I know you use fantasy to deal with shit, but this is getting out of hand." She snapped. 

Eliot blinked and stopped walking. "Maybe, but maybe it’s--" 

"What, it’s a very special art project that the dead guy made up? 'Cause I don’t know-- you wrote your admissions essay on the glory of Fillory? - Come on, E. Come on."

He didn’t know how Margo could react like that. She’d always been by his side on this, and now, it was... Maybe she was just struggling with having seen a dead man and taking it out on him.

"What if--" 

"No!" She exclaimed. "You have to stop!" 

"Stop what?" 

"You can’t run away hard enough, can you?" Margo was almost shouting, in the middle of the street and some people were briefly staring before walking away. Perks of New York. People had seen so much weird shit they didn’t even stop anymore. "What happened to giving up on the Fillory crap?" 

"You used to like Fillory."

"Yeah, I liked it. I loved it..." She started, shaking her head.

"You got me into it, Margo!" Eliot accused. 

"Yeah, it was nerdy and cute and it made life a bit more bearable but like, we have to stop with the fantasy bullshit and try to deal with real life. We’re over 21 now. Books have nothing on vodka."

Eliot stopped and looked at the book in his hand. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was just… stupid. Maybe it was a prank. He was just tired of this, of this world and he needed a goddamn drink. 

He huffed and looked around. “Fine. Lemme find a trashcan.” 

He caught sight of one, yellow-lidded and in a dark alley. He told Margo he would be right back and started walking towards the trashcan. As he stepped into the alley, something strange started to happen. The more he walked to the trashcan, the farther it seemed to be. He huffed. He’d never had that kind of reaction to weed, but maybe it had been laced with something. 

He turned around to go back to where Margo was standing but there was nothing there. New York was gone. All there was was bushes. “Well, I’m definitely tripping my balls out.” He’d kill James when he found his way out. James had been the one to bring in the weed. 

Eliot sighed and turned around again. Instead of the trashcan was a huge lawn. That lawn led to a great building, Greek-inspired architecture, with a small wall that had golden letters on it. “Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy?” Eliot read out loud. Fuck. He was so high. 

On the wall, he could see someone sitting there. He rolled his eyes. “Let’s interact with the trip people…” He mumbled under his breath. He made his way across the lawn. The sun seemed brighter here, the colors more warm, and it was almost annoying. He should have taken his sunglasses. 

The guy had shaggy light brown hair, was wearing an old hoodie, and was sitting cross-legged on the small brick wall, playing with a deck of cards. Weirdo. 

“Excuse me,” Eliot asked. “What’s this place? I mean my imagination is very creative but I’d like to know where my trip got this from.”

“You’re Eliot Waugh,” the shaggy, but cute, guy said. “It’s… Brakebills. Literally written there,” he motioned to the golden letters.

“Right…” Eliot replied. “So. What now?”

“Now is your entrance exam. Follow me,” the guy got off of the wall and started walking towards another building. 

Entrance exam? What the fuck was up with his subconcious? Eliot reached for his cigarettes and found them, lighting one and following the guy through the grass again to a more modern looking building. 

“By the way, I’m Quentin."  
  



End file.
